Firefox for Android brings older smartphones into the fold

Older phones based on the ARMv6 architecture can now get a modern browser.

If you're still holding on to an older Android phone, Mozilla has an announcement for you: the mobile version of Firefox now officially supports a number of phones using processors based on the older ARMv6 instruction set. This includes models like the HTC Status, HTC ChaCha, Samsung Galaxy Ace, Motorola Fire XT, LG Optimus Q, and others. ARMv7 processors have superseded these older chips in almost all new phones today, but this is a welcome move for people who are still waiting out their contract before upgrading to something new.

According to a Mozilla blog post on the subject, about 55 percent of the 133 million Android phones in active use are still using ARMv6-based processors. The new version sets a minimum hardware requirement of an 800MHz processor and 512MB of RAM, but Mozilla wants to continue to reduce these requirements. On the software side, Firefox for Android still requires version 2.2 ("Froyo") or better in order to run, but according to Google's own numbers this should cover over 96 percent of Android's installed base.

Google's own Chrome browser requires version 4.0 ("Ice Cream Sandwich") or newer to run, which covers less than 30 percent of the installed base. This makes Firefox the best option for an actively maintained browser on these phones, which are likely to be older or cheaper models without much hope of manufacturer support. Without manufacturer support, the built-in browser won't get updates, leaving users stuck with security holes and rendering problems that become more apparent as the Web moves forward.

I continue to be very disappointed by the fragmentation in the Android space. While I don't use Android myself (and this is one of the major reasons I don't), I do have to support it both professionally and personally.

I continue to be very disappointed by the fragmentation in the Android space. While I don't use Android myself (and this is one of the major reasons I don't), I do have to support it both professionally and personally.

The Android SDK contains many useful features that reduce the problems of fragmentation. Granted it won't solve everything but most reports of fragmentation are a result of bad developers not using these tools properly.

Bullshit. And apart from being better, Opera only requires Android 1.6.

Please leave the blanket statements about which browser is best to us fanboys please, it's very unbecomming for a writer.

Please leave the aggressive posting about your distaste for the writer stance on what browser he want to push forward, it's very unbecoming when commenting. Thank you.

No, he obviously isn't trying to push Firefox, he just doesn't realise that Firefox isn't unique in supporting armv6 (he isn't making a statement claiming that Firefox is better than Opera, he flat out states that Firefox is the /only/ modern browser).

I continue to be very disappointed by the fragmentation in the Android space. While I don't use Android myself (and this is one of the major reasons I don't), I do have to support it both professionally and personally.

This is the opposite of fragmentation, in that it is another option for more versions of Android to have an updated browser, which means that things will load and render much more similarly across more phones. You should be happy at this news if you really are that inundated with "fragmentation" issues to support.

Opera Mini and Opera Mobile are both very nice browsers that don't take a lot of resources.

Opera Mini does the HTML parsing in Opera's servers. It's quite fast, and it usually works well.

Opera Mobile puts a full web browser in the Android device. In my experience, it's faster and smoother than the browser in Android 2.3 Gingerbread. But you should go into the settings and disable Opera Turbo. Opera Turbo is supposed to compress web pages and images in Opera's servers, but it breaks a lot of web pages.

Opera Mobile is a fully featured, /modern/ browser. It's supported on basically all smartphones on the earth. Opera Mini is supported even on simple mobile phones. And it runs much smoother than Firefox. So using this information I'd say that Firefox isn't by far the ONLY, and surely isn't the BEST modern browser, either for mobile, or desktop OS.As for android - Dolphin is also a modern browser, which also runs faster than Firefox. So I have no idea why the author had categorized Firefox as THE ONLY browser in whatever area.

It *doesn't* support the majority of older phones. All this update does is allow a small number of phones, released early in 2012, to use Firefox. I have an LG Optimus and a Samsung Gio, both released late 2011, neither of which this is supported on. These were two of the most popular handsets in Australia at the time, so this update *isn't* helping a majority of users here.

Firefox with Firefox on Sync on PC and Android is gold. I like Mozilla's continuing mission to keep the web open. Firefox on Android has come a long way, but there are many more features I believe it needs. Good progress so far and good for a daily driver.

Fenec uses WAY too much memory to be useful on just about any phone with an Armv6, my 384MB phone could run it only if I killed all other programs first and it would generally push my launcher out of ram as well. If you want a good browser for older/cheaper phones I'll add my voice to Opera Mobile.

Andrew Cunningham / Andrew has a B.A. in Classics from Kenyon College and has over five years of experience in IT. His work has appeared on Charge Shot!!! and AnandTech, and he records a weekly book podcast called Overdue.